Most of us base our ratings on what we see with our own eyes. But some fans also go by statistics, and they put a lot of weight in goals and assists, and with good reason.

Games are won when goals are scored. They are lost when goals are allowed. So, it follows, that the players who are most involved in the most goals being scored for a team are extremely valuable to that team.

For many decades, after a goal has been scored, as many as three points have been awarded, one for the goal scorer and as many as two assists for the last two players who passed the puck to the goal scorer.

This year, I decided to put a twist on this notion, and look at goals scored against the Oilers. If I could figure out which players were most involved in goals scored against the team, I figured that might be valuable information as well.

My idea was to assign as many as three “errors” to the Oilers who were most responsible for goals scored against the team at even strength. I picked three errors for a goal against so it would correspond with three points for a goal scored, and that way I could come up with a useful even strength plus/minus, errors vs. points.

In the end, the Oilers scored 423 points at even strength, and I assigned 387 errors at even strength.

In order to assign errors, I set out criteria for what amounted to a mistake and how I would count them. I have described the process in detail in this F.A.Q. about the error statistic (There have been any number of critiques of my work this year, and I think the F.A.Q. goes some distance in answering many of the issues.).

To properly assign errors, I watched replays of each goal against, sometimes as many as 20 times. In the end — having watched dozens and dozens of goals against the Oilers — I’m confident that the final plus/minus errors. vs. points numbers I’m presenting to you today are meaningful, that they help identify the Oilers who are the best two-way players at even strength, such as Shawn Horcoff and Steve Staios, and those who are the weakest, such as Jarret Stoll and Joni Pitkanen.

Horcoff and Staios are smart and hardworking defensive players. They are rarely out of position and conscientious about picking up their man in the slot. They read the play well. They are constantly looking around, seeing who needs to be covered, and making the correct judgment. And this is reflected in the smaller numbers of “errors” they made.

On the other hand, a player like Pitkanen struggled with defensive concepts. He was often caught in what I call the Red Light Zone, a space where he is not really doing anything in the defensive zone, not effectively checking the man with the puck or covering anyone in the slot.

As for Stoll, his poor two-way plus-minus mainly results from his lack of point production at even strength.

I would argue that Stoll is, in fact, a strong defensive player. Four or five of his errors came on the powerplay, on short-handed goals when he was exposed as a forward trying to play defenceman.

Stoll also tended to have tough defensive assignments on a regular basis. So he can still get the job done on defence. It’s his offence that causes his atrocious errors vs. points plus/minus. His offence needs to improve if he’s going to be anything more than a role player in the NHL.

This chart lists the Oilers by position, as it only makes sense to compare plus/minus, errors vs. points, on a positional basis. A defenceman who plays regularly and is even at plus/minus would likely be an All-Star, while a forward who is even in this plus/minus is definitely not pulling his weight in some regard, as in the case of Stoll.

When you look at the plus/minus, especially for the forwards and goalies, it looks to me as if it is not just a fair representation of how these players performed at even strength this year, I’d argue it’s also an accurate one.

If I were to line up the forwards in terms of two-way performance, I’d be happy to rate them: Horcoff, Hemsky, Cogliano, Nilsson, Gagner, Brodziak, Penner, Glencross, Pisani, Reasoner, Stortini, Stoll.

So I’m somewhat relieved that this is how the errors vs points plus/minus rates them. It matches what I saw — and what I believe most fans saw — in terms of two-way performance this year, and it suggests that this particular study has some merit going forward.

There’s this feeling in enemy quarters that Craig Simpson is a one-trick pony – a horse who plays like he’s on a merry-go-round. Up and down in front of the refs, to the distaste of the opposing team. The Winnipeg Jets don’t like him, along with about 19 other National Hockey League teams, but the Jets have to admit one thing today. Simpson goes the last mile. Forget the beatings he takes in the goalie’s face; Simpson’s legs and quick hands have really hurt the Jets.

He got to that loose puck in the crease to get the first Oiler goal Friday. “He fought his way through a check to get there,” said Oiler coach John Muckler. “That was a helluva effort.”

Simpson has eight shots and three goals in the first two games of the Smythe Division semifinal. He hit the post on a deflection in the dying seconds of regulation in Game 2.

In overtime, he hammered a 30-foot shot 10 seconds in that Stephane Beauregard had to make a tremendous save on. Nobody’s been better than this much-maligned winger, who’s been the missing piece of the puzzle with Jari Kurri and Esa Tikkanen.

Kurri has four points (one goal, three assists) and Tikkanen two helpers so far. The line has 10 points and 17 shots.

After struggling to score much of the year, he looks very much like the guy who had 66 goals in ’87-88.

What he’s doing is getting into his favorite spot, the no-parking zone in front of whatever goalie the Jets are playing. It’s something he wasn’t able to do from October to the end of March.

“I don’t know how many tip-ins I had during the year, but it wasn’t many. And I got a rebound goal in our last game with Winnipeg,” said Simpson, who had about 25 deflections the year he had 56.

“I don’t think I played that much differently during the season but the defence has made a conscious effort to shoot the puck more. I had four tip-in chances last night.”

He deflected a shot past Bob Essensa in the opener, and had little trouble finding his way to his best spot in either game. “The Jets aren’t like Calgary. They’d be beating on me all night long,” said Simpson. “(Brad) McCrimmon would be all over me.”

The Jets don’t play a black and blue style, though. That’s why they moved Gord Donnelly from the wing to defence to try and move more people.

Simpson has stayed on his feet for most of this series, except when he dove to try and knock a loose puck by Beauregard in the second period Friday. He missed and his stick caught the goalie in the groin.

“Of all the Oilers, Simpson has become the most recognizable,” said Beauregard, with a touch of sarcasm. Simpson didn’t know where he’d hit the goalie. “I was aiming for the puck and got a piece of it,” he said.

The rookie goalie was ticked off by Simpson’s goal. “A fluke. The first shot (Steve Smith) touched me and then I lost it. Then, all I heard was the crowd going nuts,” said Beauregard.

Simpson knows he’s not going to win any Good Housekeeping awards as he sets up shop. He’s been told to clear out. “But it’s the playoffs. . . I’m not getting into sparring words.”

Perhaps Craig MacTavish sees Simpson in the best light. “He’s an antagonist. He takes pride in that role. He likes to get under people’s skin. There’s nothing like getting knocked down three or four times and getting up to put the puck in the net,” he said.

“I know one thing. If the other team likes you when it’s all over, you haven’t done your job.”

Jets experience another kind of fearByline: CAM COLE Winnipeg

Fear is not a subject coaches like to discuss. Fear is associated with cowardice, timidity, nervousness – qualities no coach ever wants dragged into a conversation about his hockey club.

Calgary defenceman Al MacInnis told a reporter, much later, that when Brown uttered those six words, the Flames on the bench all averted their eyes, not knowing what to say. That’s physical fear.

But there is also subconscious fear; a kind of dread of what is perceived as inevitable. A sort of “Oh, no, here we go again” sensation. The type of sensation the Winnipeg Jets must have been experiencing after Mark Lamb set up Joe Murphy’s tying goal, then scored the overtime winner, in the Edmonton Oilers’ Friday night re-enactment of The Return of the Living Dead.

“I think,” Winnipeg coach Bob Murdoch said Saturday, carefully addressing the question, “if you asked anybody in Calgary, they’d tell you they feared Edmonton for a number of years, and it’s only natural: they hadn’t beaten Edmonton in hockey, or football, or anything.

“Obviously, the people of Winnipeg still have that fear of Edmonton . . . but I’ll tell you, it doesn’t go on forever. And this isn’t the same Winnipeg team that’s been here other years.”

No Oiler aura

Murdoch does not believe in an Oiler “aura”, or a deep-rooted Jets psychological trauma, even if the Winnipeg franchise has only ever won twice in 21 playoff games against the Oilers. Even if the Oilers are 8-0 in their last eight playoff overtimes, and the Jets are 0-4 lifetime. Even if the Jets had the Oilers on the ropes Friday, and had taken the Northlands Coliseum crowd totally out of the game, and had everything going their way – and still couldn’t nail it down.

Nothing supernatural about that, said Murdoch.

Winnipeg, the city, may have a problem with Edmonton, he said, but Winnipeg, the hockey club, doesn’t.

“The crowd definitely helped them, after their first goal,” Murdoch said. “It got their adrenalin flowing. But even after they scored and started to press us more, there were good scoring opportunities going the other way, we just didn’t put them away.

“That’s why I think (the Oilers) are probably breathing a sigh of relief today, because if we scored when that one went off the goalpost (Brent Ashton’s deflection) on the power play – that might have ended it right there.”

But I wonder.

“It would have been history-making, winning two from the Edmonton Oilers in their building,” said veteran centre Doug Evans.

“Well, these aren’t quite the same old Oilers,” said his interviewer.

“No,” said Evans. “Greg Paslawski and I (former Blues) both remember a couple of years ago in St. Louis when we led them 3-0 going into the third period and they won 7-6 in overtime. The Oilers absolutely scored at will. That’s how talented they were.

“Some of those players are gone, but it’s still like playing the Montreal Canadiens. The Oilers still have that glow about them.”

Sort of an aura, you might say?

“They still have more talent than we do,” said Evans. “More obvious talent, anyway.”

A limit to modesty

The Jets have been playing down their abilities from the start of the series, and building up the Oilers until it would be a miracle if the Edmonton players weren’t convinced all they had to do was show up. But they’ve milked that one for about all it’s worth.

By their never-say-die play in the first two games, the Jets have the Oilers’ full attention now. It’s clear they have the capacity to frustrate Edmonton’s big guns, neutralize their offence – in short, to make it a very long, tough series.

What isn’t so clear is whether the Jets truly believed, Friday, that they were go
od e
nough to be where they were after two periods. Or whether fear gripped them and they convinced themselves they weren’t.

“It was a great opportunity, everybody knows that, we know it,” said Murdoch. “They would have been really behind the 8-ball if we had won it . . . but I don’t think anybody in their wildest imagination seriously thought the Winnipeg Jets would be up 2-0 coming home.”

Hopefully Kevin Lowe and fiancee Karen Percy have group medical. The skater and skier have been hit by mishaps all season.

Lowe, who has been cut six times in the face, had his nose broken and his eye scratched this year, was felled by back spasms in the first period of the Edmonton Oilers’ 3-2 overtime Smythe Division semifinal win over the Jets Friday.

Percy has had a terrible run on the World Cup circuit; she’s been an accident looking for a place to happen.

Lowe, who broke his wrist and ribs a couple of years ago in the National Hockey League playoffs and never missed a game, is very doubtful for the third battle with the Jets tonight.

“He could be back in two days, five, a week, who knows,” said Oiler coach John Muckler.

“He won’t be joining us until he can play.”

Lowe blocked a shot by Paul Fenton in about the third minute Friday, but shook off a sore thigh. When he got tied up with Peter Taglianetti after Brent Ashton’s goal 5 1/2 minutes into the game, he got the worst of the collision. “It was like running into a brick wall,” said Muckler.

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